What makes Le Mans so special?

Nick Tandy, an English driver, competes in a Porsche 919 Hybrid during qualifying earlier this week - AFP

This article was written by the late Brian Laban, a Le Mans specialist and Telegraph Cars contributor, ahead of the 2013 event.

There are gaggles of ancient and merely elderly sporty cars, mainly of British contriving, at Channel ports and on French roads.

There are road-legal cars with their drivers' names in the DIN typeface of racecar drivers' names. There are hatchbacks and rental vans stickered with humorous implications of boisterous behaviour, mainly involving heroic consumption of alcohol and similar shenanigans.

There are motorhomes with mountain bikes and mini-motos on the tail-racks, trailers ostentatiously brimming with camping kit and beer. There are conspiratorial huddles of middle-aged men wearing T-shirts declaring their allegiances. The annual pilgrimage to the 24 Hours of Le Mans is under way.

Le Mans takes place on closed public roadsCredit: JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER/AFP

Ninety years ago, cars had to be craned expensively on to ferries and there was only one British car in the race. But very quickly Le Mans became, apocryphally, "the biggest British motor race in France". And it still is.

The town had English connections long before the southbound invasion. It's where William of Normandy planned his excursion to Hastings in 1066. It's where Geoffrey of Anjou (nicknamed Plantagenet, because he wore a sprig of broom in his cap), married William's granddaughter the Empress Matilda, daughter of Henry I of England. Their son, also Henry, born in Le Mans, became Henry II in 1154. And Le Mans stayed under English rule into the 13th century.

In 1906, after city-to-city racing had claimed too many fatalities, Le Mans devised a public road alternative, with a closed lap, and hosted the first ever "Grand Prix". The course was a rough triangle, with a village at each corner.

Credit: JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER /AFP

The 780-mile race was split over two days in June. The winner averaged 63mph, with a fastest 65-mile lap at more than 73mph. And sustained speeds of more than 100mph, when the Land Speed Record was only 127mph and Britain's limit had just been raised to 20mph.

In 1907, four years after the Wright brothers made their first powered flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Le Mans invited Wilbur to make the first powered flights in Europe, on the racecourse in the centre of what would become the 24-hour circuit. There's a monument to Wilbur in the middle of the hippodrome, and another in the town.

Le Mans (the race) remains special because it remains unique. It isn't a couple of hours of follow-my-leader on Sunday afternoon, it's two full laps of the clock with overtaking everywhere. It's for sports cars, open and closed, and visibly varied.

Credit: Ker Robertson /Getty Images

The current classes encompass production-based GTs that resemble ones you'd see on the road, and racing prototypes, which definitely don't, but essaying technology that often appears in the road cars you and I buy.

The majority of the circuit, as it has been since 1923, is made up of what are normally public roads, closed only for the event – through the pine forests, past houses, bars and villages, the horse racing track and golf course.

Today's lap is about 8.5 miles which the fastest cars take about 3 minutes and 25 seconds, or less, to complete. The fastest ever lap average is almost exactly 156mph, and straight-line speeds have topped 250mph.

Credit: Getty Images Europe

To win Le Mans, you'd need to do close to 400 of those eight-and-a-half-mile, three-and-a-half-minute laps before this time tomorrow – day and night, rain or shine.

The distance record, from 2010, is 3,362 miles – the equivalent of 17 Formula One grands prix, back to back. A 24-hour average of more than 140mph would beat the lap record at most GP circuits.

That is why National Geographic declared Le Mans as the greatest must-see sporting event in the world – Olympics, World Cups, World Series et al. Full stop. And they're right.